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South Asia Investor Review is focused on reporting, analyzing and discussing the economy and the financial markets of countries in South Asia, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. For investors looking to invest in emerging markets beyond BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), this blog is designed to help international investors looking to learn about investing in South Asia with focus on Pakistan. Riaz has another blog called Haq's Musings at http://www.riazhaq.com

What is Ramadan all about? Is it only about abstaining from food and drink in the daylight hours? What is the key message for this Ramzan? Isn't respecting Huqooq-ul-Ibad (human rights of others) as important as observing Huqooq-ul-Allah (Duties to Allah such as prayer and fasting) for each Muslim? What must Muslims do this Ramzan to fulfill all of their obligations to Allah and His creation?

What does the Economic Survey of Pakistan say about Pakistan's GDP, per capita income, infrastructure development, education and other important indicators? What must Pakistani leaders do to ensure greater focus on and investment in education and not just in infrastructure? What is the size of and the key priorities in Pakistan's budget for 2017-18? Should some of the $20 billion (out of the $50 billion budget) for infrastructure be allocated to education to boost Pakistan's stagnant literacy and school enrollment rates?

Why is India losing IT jobs at a rate of 200,000 jobs a year, according to McKinsey? Is it all because of Trump's H1B visa tightening? Or does it have more to do with the need for new skills to deal with new technologies such as cloud computing and digital services?

What was the objective of Trump's tour of the Middle East and Europe? Has he achieved any of the objectives? Was Nawaz Sharif's low-key presence at the Riyadh summit appropriate? Are Nawaz Sharif's critics right? Should he have had a more prominent role at the US-Arab-Islamic summit? How would that impact Iran-Pakistan ties?

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Looking at the sub-components of growth, there is good news from agriculture, which showed a positive growth of 3.5% versus actual contraction of 0.27% last year. This change may be attributed to a 3.02% growth in crops (cotton, sugarcane, maize and gram) against a negative growth of 4.97% last year.

The government’s active attention to this sector through the Prime Minister’s Agriculture Kisan Package and increased disbursement of Rs700-billion credit may have helped the turnaround. However, the performance of industrial sector, with a growth of 5% against the target of 7.7% in 2016-17, is not very encouraging. Despite some bright spots such as those related to construction industry (iron and steel and cement), other key sectors such as fertilisers and engineering products were almost stagnant.

Growth of services (5.98%) is mostly because of banking and insurance, which grew 10.77%.

Similarly another sector, government services, showed a growth of 6.91%. While the growth in government services indicates increased expenditure and as such is not a healthy sign, the growth in the banking sector means higher deposit mobilisation, which is a positive indicator.

Tax policies

There is slight improvement in government’s taxation policies towards telecom and mobile phone sector. This would, to some extent, balance the negative fallout of the anti-telecom policies followed over the last four years. Hopefully, this will once again make Pakistan an attractive market for foreign investors.

According to the State Bank of Pakistan, in the last nine months, the FDI decreased $82 million. The government is finally realising that when its policies were favourable to this sector, it flourished and attracted FDI of approximately $5.7 billion (net).

‘Economy will prosper through industrial activity, innovation’

Furthermore, Pakistan’s high growth from 2003 to 2007 had a lot to do with liberalisation during that period.

Total debt has risen to Rs20,872 billion compared to Rs14,318 billion in 2013. Thus, during the last four years, the debt has risen by almost 50%. Already this year, interest payment on debt was the largest single expense for the country.

Next year Pakistan’s external debt servicing is estimated to be 25% higher than a year ago, which was $5.3 billion. It seems that increased spending on debt servicing will continue to be a major drag on the economic growth for years to come.

Another worrying development is the continuous fall in exports since the PML-N government came to power. In the first nine months of the current year, there was a further decline of 3.06% with exports volume shrinking to $15.119 billion.

The finance minister normally avoids speaking about exports as if this is irrelevant to the economy. What he has to realise is that this significant fall in exports has been one of the biggest failures of this government.

There may be many reasons for this poor performance but the most obvious one is the anti-export bias in the tax policies. With every budget for the last four years, the finance ministry has been increasing taxes on international trade either to curb imports or raise higher revenue. These policies have isolated Pakistan from international markets with the result that the country’s exports have fallen.

With the widening of fiscal deficit, slowing down of remittances and foreign direct investments and increasing circular debt, the government may find it difficult to keep the economy afloat without more borrowing.

Furthermore, it is not likely that during the forthcoming election year, the government would maintain the ongoing reform process, which has been steady, even if slow. All these factors may result in the next government having to face serious economic challenges.

The government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is likely increasing the country’s defense spending by 7% due to the growing need to safeguard China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects and be better prepared to fend off any potential military threat from India. However, critics accuse the government of sugarcoating the budget ahead of the national elections.

For fiscal 2017/18, Pakistan is setting its military budget at $9 billion, compared to $8.4 last year. By contrast, Pakistan’s biggest enemy India unveiled its own new budget in February with defense spending standing at more than $50 billion, according to the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses.

As much as $20 billion of the budget’s $50 billion will go toward development, $1.8 billion of which is set to finance CPEC projects. An op-ed published by DAWN suggests that there is a “Chinese footprint” on the Pakistani budget. As such, one can argue that the Chinese would allocate more money to CPEC projects if they were so keen on pushing forward the projects that matter to their national interests and not caring about Pakistan and its economic well-being whatsoever.

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One of the most prominent examples is Geo’s mud slinging for not increasing Pakistan’s health expenditures fourfold even though this year the government has increased health expenditures by nearly two times, from Rs. 29 billion to Rs. 49 billion.

For a country that is only beginning to soak up all the benefits from incoming foreign investments and is only beginning to enter the world as an emerging market, increasing expenditures by two times in any of the sectors already deserves praise. And in the case of CPEC, a whopping $150 billion in foreign investments is expected to flow into Pakistan in the coming years, according to last year’s summit of top government leaders and investors

Should we double the education budget, or seek 100pc literacy?AHMAD ALI | NADIA NAVIWALAUPDATED A DAY AGOPakistan has doubled its budget in recent years, but enrollment has stagnated. As a result of the inefficient use of funds, access to quality education for children across the country stands compromised.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1335342

In recent years, the federal and provincial governments have undertaken numerous reforms with varying levels of success. Despite their efforts, a lot remains to be done to get kids into school and improve learning in the classrooms.

To address these educational challenges, the efficient and effective use of the available budget for education is key.

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Provinces have allocated 17pc to 24pc of their budgets for education in 2016-17. (The provincial budgets for 2017-18 will be released in the coming weeks).

The ‘current budget’ is for salaries and operational costs (non-salary), whereas the ‘development budget’ is for the construction and rehabilitation of schools. Recent history suggests that provinces tend to under spend on development and non-salary budgets, but overspend on salaries, so that they end up utilising most of the education budget.

Unesco recommends that countries disburse 15pc to 20pc of their budgets on education. The global average is 14pc. Compared to its total national budget, Pakistan spends 13pc.

In Pakistan's case, this spending amounts to 2.83pc of the GDP on education. According to Alif Ailaan, an additional Rs400 billion on education is needed this year to increase spending to 4pc of GDP, bringing the education budget to Rs1.2 trillion.

Cutting a federal programme or collecting more taxes may help Pakistan towards that target. Cutting a federal programme or collecting more taxes may help Pakistan towards that target, but the dilemma of solving the education crisis will persist.

While Pakistan has doubled its budget and brought it closer to military spending, enrollment rates have stagnated.

Parents will send their kids to a private school, charging a few hundred rupees a month, if they can afford it. Nearly 40pc of students in Pakistan go to private schools. Their parents spend as much as the government does on education and tuition. If we add what Pakistani parents spend on education, Pakistan’s education spending exceeds 4pc of the GDP.

Children are out of school in Pakistan because they get so little out of going to school. Teachers are either absent, or present, but not teaching.

The 2015 report of the independent Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) finds that only 44pc of third graders in rural schools (public and private) can read a sentence in Urdu. Of those who stay in school through fifth grade, only 55pc can read a story in Urdu.

It is a similar story for science at a grade four level. In 2006, 67pc of students scored below average in the National Education Assessment System (NEAS) assessment of fourth grade science. The situation further deteriorated in 2014, when the most recent iteration of the NEAS assessment divulged that 79pc of students had scored below average.

The majority of children aged five to nine in Pakistan are in school. That’s 17 out of 22 million kids, according to the National Education Management System. Improving literacy and numeracy rates for them is our best shot at convincing the parents of Pakistan’s five million out-of-school children aged five to nine that school is worth it.

Overspending on salariesPrivate school teachers are paid $25 to $50 per month. Government school teachers are paid $150 to $1,000 per month, according to a paper by SAHE and Alif Ailaan. Government school teachers have more education and training than private school teachers.

In light of the difference in teachers' salaries, private schools spend less than half of what the government does per child. However, according to LEAPS, children who go to private schools are one and a half to two grades ahead of those in government schools, depending on the subject.

BBC News - A long term view: The man who took a chance on #Pakistan turned $1m #investment into $100m in 5 years. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40081530

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On 2 May 2011, the Barack Obama announced that Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden had been killed by US forces in Pakistan.He was shot dead at a compound near Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. And once again, Pakistan was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.A country used to bad news - both politically and economically - it has long been seen as the basket-case economy of South Asia because of its slumping foreign reserves, weak currency and lack of foreign direct investment.It was probably one of the last places on earth that a foreign investor would think to put their money.But not Mattias Martinsson. Six months later, in October 2011, he launched Pakistan's first ever foreign equity fund.In the beginning he couldn't get anyone to back the fund, so he invested $1m (£780,000) of his own cash and that of his partners. Today, that fund is worth $100m.

"It was a tough sell at the time," chuckles the soft-spoken Swede on the phone from Stockholm.That's an understatement. At one point - soon after the bin Laden killing - things got so bad that furious Pakistani investors stoned the exchange because of the falling share prices."Then the US military bombed a Pakistani military base, and Pakistan initiated a blockade of the routes for Nato supplies. The market went down 10%," Mr Martinsson says.But he stayed in the stock market, and in 2012, things started to turn around with a tax amnesty the government launched encourage the Pakistani diaspora to repatriate money."The market went up and we raised $50m in three months," he recalls.It also marked the first time in decades that more money was coming into Pakistan then going out.OutperformingAlmost a decade later, Mr Martinsson feels vindicated.That's because on 1 June 2017, Pakistan enters the MSCI Emerging Markets Index - a sign that things are turning around for the once-struggling economy. And investors are already starting to pour in.The MSCI Emerging Markets Index is made up of 23 high-growth economies including India, China and Brazil.Pakistan's main index, the KSE 100 has consistently outperformed the MSCI Emerging Markets IndexIf you had invested $100 into the KSE in January last year, it would now be worth $164. If you had put it into the MSCI, it would only be worth $137. That's a success that helped make the case for it to be included.

Being in the Emerging Markets Index is a reputational reassurance to investors about the growth prospects and transparency of companies in that country.Pakistan used to be a part of the index, but was downgraded to frontier market because of the exchange's decision to shut down for four months in late 2008 after prices dropped dramatically. That meant foreign investors couldn't get their money out."We were kicked out in 2008 after the financial crisis because of measures Pakistan took at the time to stop foreign funds from fleeing the country. Obviously foreign investors got a rude shock," says Nadeem Naqvi, the Karachi Stock Exchange's managing director."We did a lot of lobbying and reforms to get re-included again into this index," he tells me from Karachi. And he assures me and investors, that the KSE will be a liquid market."Parliament passed the Pakistan Stock Exchanges Act in 2012, which has improved corporate governance and reforms to prevent a reoccurrence of what happened in 2008," he says.

China impactPakistan's gross domestic product (GDP) has also soared over the last few years, a lot of that is thanks to the growth in the middle classes, in part fuelled by the Chinese investment boom that is part of Beijing's One Belt One Road initiative.

The re-entry into the emerging market block after nine years was made possible by the country’s improving liquidity and growth. Pakistan lost this position in late 2008, following a period of market turmoil that halted trading for months in the Karachi exchange.

Pakistan is the first country to get the frontier-to-emerging promotion after Qatar and the United Arab Emirates several years ago. MSCI will add Pakistan to the Emerging Market Index effective May 31, at the market close, with a weight of just 0.2% (read: Can Emerging Market ETFs Retain Their Mojo in 2017?).

The reclassification is making investors bullish about Global X MSCI Pakistan ETF (PAK – Free Report) – the ETF targeting Pakistani equity markets. The fund will likely lure a wider class of investors thereby injecting huge amounts of money into the country. In fact, the fund is on track for the biggest monthly inflow since its inception two years ago. The ETF has gathered $11.8 million in capital so far this month, propelling its asset base to $48.5 million. According to Bloomberg, the bearish bets have also fallen to the lowest level since December. Over $1 million short positions have been cut over the past six weeks.

PAK in Focus

The product offers exposure to 43 Pakistani equities by tracking the MSCI All Pakistan Select 25/50 Index. The top two firms – Habib Bank and Lucky Cement – dominate the fund returns with a double-digit exposure each. Other firms hold less than 7.2% of the assets. From a sector look, financials and materials occupy the top two positions at 33% and 28%, respectively, followed by energy (18%).

The ETF is expensive relative to many emerging market funds, charging 91 bps in fees and expenses. Additionally, it trades in small volumes of about 35,000 shares resulting in additional cost in the form of wide bid/ask spread.

PAK has been outperforming the broad emerging funds, returning investors 33.5% over the past one-year period compared with gains of 29% for (EEM – Free Report) . It has a Zacks ETF Rank of 3 or ‘Hold rating with a Medium risk outlook, suggesting more room for upside (read: Pakistan ETF Hits New 52-Week High).

The outperformance is likely to continue given the country’s GDP growth, falling poverty, and bourgeoning middle class. After falling to below 4% growth in 2008, Pakistan GDP growth hit a 10-year high of 5.28% for fiscal year 2016–17. However, terrorist attacks, bombings, other incidents of violence and brutal state retaliation continue to weigh on the country’s growth and the ETF performance.

The Global X MSCI Pakistan ETF (NYSE:PAK) was unchanged in premarket trading Tuesday. Year-to-date, PAK has gained 7.49%, versus a 8.13% rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index during the same period.

PAK currently has an ETF Daily News SMART Grade of A (Strong Buy), and is ranked #39 of 77 ETFs in the Emerging Markets Equities ETFs category.

India has posted its slowest growth rate in two years, ceding its status as the world’s fastest-growing major economy to China, with economists blaming the downturn partly on last year’s shock decision to recall the country’s two highest-value bank notes.Analysts said the 6.1% GDP growth figure for the January to March quarter – compared with China’s 6.9% – reflected a general economic slowdown in the south Asian giant, compounded by the shock demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee banknotes, worth approximately £6 and £12.

The move led to months of acute cash shortages across India that hit the country’s manufacturing and construction sectors particularly hard, the former recording slower growth than in the same period last year. The construction sector contracted by 3.7%.

The cash recall was intended to hasten the country’s transition towards a formal economy and close down the booming economy of untaxed cash transactions, which aid corruption, the funding of terrorist groups and keeps counterfeit notes in circulation. It was also expected to unearth stashes of untaxed wealth in a country where just 1% pay income tax.

India’s Reserve Bank is yet to say how much “black money” was deposited in banks but early indications suggest it was less than expected.

Gurchuran Das, an economic commentator, said the lagging growth was well below the rate India required to create enough jobs to match the number of new entrants to the workforce, estimated to be roughly 1 million people a month.

“It shows that demonetisation was a big mistake,” he said. “What this has done is put us back about six months. We should have been inching towards 8% annual growth, but have ended up around 7.1%.

“We’ve really got to be at 9% growth to create the jobs we need,” he said. “Already we were having problems creating those jobs, but demonetisation has exacerbated it by a couple of quarters.”

He said the economy had bounced back after cash shortages eased in January and the country was likely reach 8% growth in the next three to four years, a prediction shared by the global ratings agency Moody’s.

India's banknote ban: how Modi botched the policy yet kept his political capitalRead moreArvind Subramanian, India’s chief economist, said the reduction in growth was “quite expected” after demonetisation, and that the replenishment of cash stocks and the monsoon period would help the economy rebound.

Growth in India has been slowing since the middle of 2016, according to HSBC, but Das said the country’s economy was generally wellmanaged. “The inflation rate is the lowest it’s been in five years, the fiscal deficit has come down, and India has in fact become the largest destination for foreign investment in the world,” the former CEO of Procter & Gamble India said.

He added that the key to creating high-productivity jobs in the formal sector was expanding India’s share of global exports, currently around 1.7%.

India is preparing to introduce a national goods and services tax in July that is expected to make the country a more attractive destination for foreign investment, cut red tape for business and increase trade between states. But Moody’s has warned the country needs to further reduce debt levels if it hopes to boost its international credit rating, currently just above junk status.

Although the implementation of demonetisation was seen as botched by some, the policy is thought to have been a political coup for the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi. In March, he decisively won an election in India’s largest state that was seen as a referendum on the scheme.

Pakistan officially became an emerging market June 1 with MSCI's index re-categorization from frontier status, and yet the Pakistan ETF was this week's big loser among developing market funds.

Moving to a bigger class of equities should draw more investors to the underlying equities in the index. Pakistan's financial health is tethered positively to China's grand investment in infrastructure, but also to political whims motivated 2018 elections. Still, the government is likely to do what it should to prop up the economy and currency.

Yet this week, investors were selling on the news, and the Global X MSCI Pakistan exchange-traded fund (PAK) slipped 9%, making it the biggest loser among the developing-market funds we watch. The iShares Frontier Markets ETF (FM) slipped nearly 1% last week, and the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) was flat. So what gives? The MSCI's reclassification deliberations were well known, and the Pakistan ETF is up about 18% over 12 months. That's not an outrageous return, with the iShares Frontier ETF up 14% over the past year, and the iShares Emerging Markets ETF is up 25% in that time frame.

Eurasia Group analysts Shailesh Kumar and Sasha Riser-Kositsky said in a recent note that Pakistan's US$48.6 billion budget is fairly prudent and will help encourage growth, however:

"Islamabad still must obtain another International Monetary Fund package in the coming years to shore up the country’s finances. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s last budget before next year’s elections gives the military plenty to cheer about as the government attempts to secure its support. There is little populist spending included, which could undermine Sharif’s standing with the electorate, though a more sound fiscal approach does provide general stability ... infrastructure spending is set to rise significantly, topping USD$3.9 billion in the coming year. Highway construction alone will draw $3 billion, a 70% increase from the previous year. However, these spending patterns will do little to improve quality of life in the short term or address chronic electricity shortfalls. A pledge to address the latter helped bring Sharif to power in 2013, but persistent rolling blackouts might undermine his chances of remaining there in 2018. He will likely instead tout his infrastructure spending to showcase his development agenda ...This year’s 4.1% fiscal deficit target is closer to reality, [but] the government will find it difficult to achieve this goal ... privatization of state-owned enterprises is forecast to add $476 million to the fiscal coffers. The government had a similar target last year but only raised $170 million ...Direct bank borrowing to fund the deficit is expected to be halved from $7.06 billion last year to $3.7 billion. This will likely be offset by an increase in marketable debt issuance (local and foreign). While this will help develop Pakistan’s bond markets, it will fuel upward pressure on yields, raise the interest expense in subsequent years, and drain reserves to service the debt."Brown Brothers Harriman currency Strategist Win Thin et al add the kicker:

"Indo-Pakistani relations remain tense after the recent outbreak of killings in disputed Kashmir. Yet this is nothing new in a conflict that has been going on since independence was established for these two countries in 1946. Unfortunately, we have come to expect periodic outbreaks of violence in Kashmir."

The provincial minister said that the budget for the next fiscal year has the largest development programme amounting to Rs635 billion. She added that it was unprecedented in the country’s history among all provinces.

“The development budget is 15 per cent more than the current fiscal year,” Dr Ayesha said in her budget speech.

Earlier, the provincial cabinet approved the budget in a meeting presided over by CM Shehbaz Sharif.

AgricultureThe government has allocated 20 billion for agriculture in the province.Development Programs

Rs635 billion allocated for annual development program.Rs 95 billion for roads.Rs57 billion have been allocated for Water and sanitation.Health

A total of 341 billion have been allocated for education in Punjab.Rs57 billion have been fixed for health sector.Rs 20 billion have been fixed for DHQs, THQs.Primary healthcare will get a Rs1 billion boost in the next fiscal year.An amount of Rs 20.4126 billion has been allocated in the fiscal year 2017-18 for the provision of free medicines.Salaries & Pension

A 10 per cent raise has been made in the salaries and pension of provincial government employees.

Education

Rs52.35 billion will be allocated for school education.A sum of Rs230 billion has been set aside for District Education Authorities.Rs28 billion have been fixed for providing basic facilities at government schools.Rs6.03 billion have been set aside for construction of new classrooms in Punjab schools.Industries

A sum of Rs7.567 billion has been allocated for industries in the proposed budget.

TEVTA will receive about Rs5.054 billion as grant-in-aid, and an amount of Rs145.575 million has been reserved for Headquarters Establishment.An amount of Rs179.354 million has been reserved for Inspectorate of Mines, whereas the Punjab Small Industries Corporation will get Rs1.420 billion as grant-in-aid.Punjab Skills Development Project will receive Rs43.354 million. Sasti Roti Authority will receive Rs8.799 million and Rs180.397 million will be spent on the regional establishment.

Give alms to the poor and indigent ones among you; surround your elderly with respect, and be kind to your youngsters. Visit your kin and safeguard your tongues and do not look at what Allah has decreed as prohibitive for you to look at, and do not listen to anything your ears are forbidden from hearing. Be kind to the orphans of others, so that your own orphans will equally receive kindness. Repent your sins to Almighty Allah and raise your hands to Him in supplication during the times of your prayers, for they are the best times during which Almighty Allah looks with mercy to His servants and answers their pleas when they plead Him.

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"O People! Whoever among you improves his conduct during this month will have a safe passage on the right path when many feet will slip away, and whoever among you decreases the burdens on his servant, will be rewarded by Almighty Allah decreasing his reckoning.

Whoever among you abstains from harming others will be spared the Wrath of Almighty Allah when he meets Him. Whoever among you affords generosity to an orphan will be rewarded by Almighty Allah being generous to him on the day of judgment.

Whoever among you improves his ties with his kin will be rewarded by Almighty Allah including him in His mercy, and whoever among you severs his ties with his kin, Almighty Allah will withhold His mercy from him when he meets Him.

Last month, after over two decades in India, Detroit giant General Motors (GM) called it quits. The company will stop selling cars in India and focus only on exports from its factory in Talegaon in Pune. GM will shut down its plant in Halol in Gujarat. It has been struggling in India, selling 25,823 cars in 2016-17, giving it a market share of under 1%. Its dealers and customers are still reeling under the shock.

In a market that at last count had over 17 carmakers, and in which the top four control over 75%, a legitimate question to ask is: who next after GM? It’s also pertinent considering that all is not well at many of the bit players — in India as well as at the global headquarters.

Look under the hood at Volkswagen India. It has been hit by a flight of senior honchos at the sales division. The head of sales, national head of corporate sales and south sales manager have reportedly quit.

More exits are said to be in the offing. The world’s largest carmaker that sold over 10 million cars as a group in 2016 is struggling in India. Under the mother VW brand, the Indian outpost sold 50,042 cars in 2016-17, yielding 1.6% in market share. “India is indeed one of the toughest markets,” says Andreas Lauermann, managing director, Volkswagen India. But he has reason not to give up. “If you can crack it, you can practically access many more such markets around the world. We know that the I ..

Read more at:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/58978980.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Indian factory growth cooled in May as new orders expanded at a more modest pace, but manufacturers were able to raise prices slightly, according to a private survey.The Nikkei Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index, compiled by IHS Markit, fell to 51.6 in May from April’s 52.5, marking its fifth month above the 50 level that separates growth from contraction.Output expanded at the softest pace since February but remained moderate.The new orders sub-index, which reflects both domestic and foreign demand, fell to 52.6 from 53.8 in April. Export orders contracted for the first time in four months, albeit marignally.

“The upturn in the Indian manufacturing sector took a step back in May, with softer demand causing slower expansions in output and the amount of new work received by firms,” said Pollyanna de Lima, economist at IHS Markit.“Moreover, there was a renewed decline in new export orders.”While companies were able to raise selling prices, the increase was modest, reinforcing views that inflation may remain below the Reserve Bank of India’s medium-term target of 4 percent, giving it room to ease monetary policy.Indian inflation eased in April to 2.99 percent from 3.89 percent in March.Also helping the inflation outlook, monsoon rains have arrived earlier than anticipated, with the meteorological department predicting normal downpours this year.“With inflation under control and manufacturing growth below par, we may see the RBI changing neutral monetary policy stance to accommodative in coming months in order to support the economy,” de Lima said.While the central bank is expected to leave rates unchanged at 6.25 percent in its June meeting, the Monetary Policy Committee will adopt a less hawkish tone in its statement, according to a Reuters poll of 60 economists.Analysts think that a policy hold is still on the cards, despite a shock slowdown in economic growth reported on Wednesday.The economy expanded 6.1 percent in the January-March period, far slower than expectations for 7.1 percent, with capital investment showing no sign of reviving.However, consumer spending is likely to pick up before the government implements a multi-rate Goods and Services Tax from July 1, with some items expected to be taxed at 28 percent or higher.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s per capita income rose 6.4 percent to $1,629 in the current fiscal year of 2016/17 from $1,531 in the preceding fiscal year, an official document revealed on Thursday.

The per capita income grew 2.9 percent in 2015/16 over the preceding fiscal year. The ministry of finance will release the figure of per capita income along with the upcoming Economic Survey (2016-17) before the announcement of the budget for fiscal 2017-18. The survey is expected to be released on May 25, 2017 by the finance minister Ishaq Dar.

The document, available with The News, stated that the country’s economy is performing well on many accounts but “two key targets are showing stagnation or negative growth including investment and savings in terms of GDP ratios.” “Without promoting investment and savings, the growth trajectory will not remain long lasting.”

The economy grew at the rate of 5.28 percent in the current fiscal year against the projected rate of 5.7 percent. Though the government once again missed the growth target because of under performed industrial and services sectors, it is still the fastest pace of growth since 2006-07 when the GDP expanded by 6.8 percent. Size of Pakistan’s economy reached $304.4 billion in the current fiscal year

The per capita income has been calculated on the basis of projected population of 197.3 million for the current fiscal year of 2016-17 compared to the population size of 193.6 million in the previous year.

The document showed that the savings to GDP ratio has fallen to 13.1 percent of GDP in the fiscal 2016-17 against 14.3 percent of GDP during the previous year. However, the most worrisome aspect of the economy is a declining trend in private investment during the current financial year.

The document showed that investment to GDP ratio inched up in the outgoing fiscal year despite significant investment inflows from neighbouring China under the $57-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

“At a time when the country is claiming for receiving billions of dollars in shape of CPEC but total investment in GDP term went up from 15.6 percent in 2015-16 to just 15.8 percent for the current fiscal year,” an official said. In absolute numbers, total investment stood at Rs 5,026 billion in 2016-17 against Rs 4,526.7 billion in the last fiscal year of 2015-16.

The country received $1.733 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) during first 10 months of the current fiscal year of 2016/17, up 12.7 percent from a year earlier, as investment from Chinese companies continued to increase.

The State Bank of Pakistan said most of the new investments, in the July-April FY17, went into food processing, electronics and construction sectors. FDI from the Chinese companies rose 13 percent to $718.3 million in July-April FY17.

The government document showed that the fixed investment in GDP ratio increased to 14.2 percent during the ongoing fiscal year against 14 percent in the last fiscal year. The public investment in GDP terms also rose 4.3 percent in 2016-17 compared to 3.8 percent for the last financial year.

However, the private investment in GDP terms declined 9.9 percent in 2016-17 from 10.2 percent during the previous fiscal year. Similarly, the national savings in percentage of GDP has declined from 14.3 percent in 2015-16 to 13.1 percent in the ongoing financial year, registering negative growth. In absolute figures, the national savings stood at Rs 4,161 billion in 2016-17 against Rs 4,173 billion in fiscal 2015-16.

Madeshwaran Subramani is the human face of IT disruption in India. He recalls being recently summoned to the HR office of his employer in southern city of Coimbatore at 11 a.m. By noon, the 29-year-old software engineer was out of a job. He worked for Cognizant Technology, a U.S.-based firm with offices in India.

"They give only two options," explained Subramani: Leave immediately and take four months' pay, or stick around another 60 days and leave with two months' salary. Subramani, who has a mortgage and a child, says he was given one hour to choose. He'd been with Cognizant since graduating from college.

He walked out and, days later, was ferrying customers in his car, which he turned into a taxi.

India is capping unprecedented success and expansion in its IT sector with something equally unprecedented: layoffs.

For decades India's IT talent has maintained the world's computers, databases and back offices. But new technologies are overtaking that old business model, and India's tech giants are scrambling to keep pace.

For 20 years, the nation's lucrative business model revolved around the idea that you can move work to low-cost locations, such as India.

These technologies require highly advanced skills, and to be competitive, India's IT firms will have to either replace or reskill their workers.

But, Bendor-Samuel says, "a significant proportion, perhaps as much as half, will struggle with their training."

Bendor-Samuel says 20,000 employees in India's 4-million-strong IT sector lost their jobs this year, and he predicts that will accelerate to hundreds of thousands of layoffs over the next few years.

"These companies don't only face the issue of retraining people, they face a fundamentally different change in their business model — how they make money — and it's going to cause them a lot of pain," he says.

India's tech industry isn't the only one affected, says Phil Fersht, CEO of the research and analysis firm HfS in Cambridge, England.

"This is a global problem where there's less need for routine transactional employees, he says. "And unfortunately for India their IT industry is caught up in this inflection point and this [long-term] shift."

But R. Chandrashekhar, president of India's National Association of Software and Services Companies, says it's not as if all the jobs that were previously there "have suddenly gone out of fashion."

"That's certainly not the case. These are shifts that are taking place and they are taking place incrementally," Chandrashekhar says. Tech firms are "aggressively" retraining staff, he says.

PUNE, India — Last month, Sudhakar Choudhari took the company bus as usual from his one-bedroom apartment to the suburban offices of Tech Mahindra, a major employer of workers in India that powers the global technology machine behind the scenes. Then a manager took him into a conference room and asked him to resign.

“It was a terrible scene for me,” said Mr. Choudhari, 41, who had been with the company for 11 years and most recently maintained software for a British client. As the manager spoke, he thought: “I have an 11-year-old child. My wife is not working. How to pay the home loans?”

Mr. Choudhari is one of a number of Indian technology workers who have lost their jobs in recent months as many in India debate whether an industry that has long served as a gateway to the middle class is preparing to shed jobs en masse.

India’s information technology industry grew at a breakneck speed over the past two decades thanks to the trend commonly called offshoring. The industry and related businesses generate more than $150 billion in annual revenue and employ about four million people to build and test software, to enter and analyze data, and to provide customer support for American and European companies looking for relatively inexpensive labor.

But the global tech industry is increasingly relying on automation, robotics, big data analytics, machine learning and consulting — technologies that threaten to bypass and even replace Indian workers. For example, automated processes may soon replace the kind of work Mr. Choudhari was performing for foreign clients, which involved maintaining software by occasionally plugging in simple code and analyzing data.

“What we’re seeing is an acceleration in shedding for jobs in India and an adding of jobs onshore,” said Sandra Notardonato, an analyst and research vice president for Gartner, a research and advisory company. “Even if these companies don’t have huge net losses, there’s a person who will suffer, and that’s a person with a limited skill set in India.”

Such job losses could be politically damaging to the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who won an electoral mandate in 2014 on the promise of development and employment for a bulging youth population. In January, near the three-year mark of his administration, an economic survey reported that job creation had stalled.

So far, the scale of the impact is not clear. T. V. Mohandas Pai, a longtime industry figure, estimates the cuts will encompass up to 2 percent of the work force by September, mainly from culling underperformers. A 2015 study released by the National Association of Software and Services Companies, the Indian technology industry trade group known as Nasscom, and McKinsey India found that 50 to 70 percent of workers’ skills would be irrelevant by 2020.

Of course, new technologies will create new jobs. The impact of automation and artificial intelligence still is not clear, and they could open up new areas that simply shift tech work rather than eliminate it.

But some in the Indian tech industry worry that many of the new jobs will be created outside India, in places like the United States, in part because President Trump has pledged to tighten visa laws that allowed many Indian nationals to go to that country to work. The subject is likely to pop up on Monday, when Mr. Modi is scheduled to visit the White House.

The Indian government has rushed to reassure the public that job losses will be minimal. Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Indian minister who oversees the technology industry, recently denied that major layoffs were occurring even as he encouraged the industry to speed up development.

Pakistani rupee rebounds after shock plunge fastFT Read next fastFT Dollar takes a dip on US payrolls report 2 HOURS AGO Share on Twitter (opens new window) Share on Facebook (opens new window) Share on LinkedIn (opens new window) Save 2 HOURS AGO by: Mehreen Khan Pakistani’s rupee has recovered some poise after a shock plunge against the dollar that has escalated tensions between the government and central bank. The rupee nosedived more than 3 per cent on Tuesday to its lowest since at least 1989 – marking its first significant move in over two years. The central bank had been keeping the currency stable against the dollar for over three years with the surprise plunge immediately raising questions about the State Bank of Pakistan allowing the depreciation to help support the economy. Having weakened from Rs104.8 against the dollar to Rs108, the rupee is now trading around Rs105.8 but has still not managed to wipe out the week’s losses. Pakistan’s finance minister has since hit out at the central bank, accusing it of “exploiting” the country’s political troubles where prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been implicated in a corruption scandal over the Panama Papers. Ishaq Dar, finance minister, called the move in the currency “artificial”, and said he had “deep concern and indignation” at the central bank’s tactics. He has ordered a government investigation into the FX move. Pakistan has suffered from a drop in exports in recent years, as well as declining remittances from Pakistanis living overseas. Economists note that a weaker currency should help reverse both trends while also allowing the central bank to preserve its dwindling foreign currency reserves. The benchmark Karachi 100 stock exchange is up 1 per cent today after suffering a 4 per cent plunge on Tuesday.

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I am the Founder and President of PakAlumni Worldwide, a global social network for Pakistanis, South Asians and their friends. I also served as Chairman of the NEDians Convention 2007. In addition to being a South Asia watcher, an investor, business consultant and avid follower of the world financial markets, I have more than 25 years experience in the hi-tech industry. I have been on the faculties of Rutgers University and NED Engineering University and cofounded two high-tech startups, Cautella, Inc. and DynArray Corp and managed multi-million dollar P&Ls. I am a pioneer of the PC and mobile businesses and I have held senior management positions in hardware and software development of Intel’s microprocessor product line from 8086 to Pentium processors. My experience includes senior roles in marketing, engineering and business management. I was recognized as “Person of the Year” by PC Magazine for my contribution to 80386 program. I have an MS degree in Electrical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
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